Robert Ballard Long

For other people named Robert Long, see Robert Long (disambiguation).

Robert Ballard Long
Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long. Mezzotint, 1827.
Born4 April 1771
Chichester, West Sussex
Died2 March 1825
Berkeley Square, London
AllegianceUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
Service / branchUnited Kingdom British Army
Years of service1791 to 1821
RankLieutenant General
Battles / wars

Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long (4 April 1771 – 2 March 1825) was an officer of the British and Hanoverian Armies who despite extensive service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars never managed to achieve high command due to his abrasive manner with his superiors and his alleged tactical ineptitude. Although he remained a cavalry commander in the Peninsular War between 1811 and 1813, the British commander Wellington became disillusioned with Long's abilities. Wellington's opinion was never expressed directly, though when the Prince Regent manoeuvred his favourite, Colquhoun Grant into replacing Long as a cavalry brigade commander, Wellington conspicuously made no effort to retain Long. Other senior officers, including Sir William Beresford and the Duke of Cumberland, expressed their dissatisfaction with Long's abilities. The celebrated historian, and Peninsula veteran, Sir William Napier was a severe critic of Beresford's record as army commander during the Albuera Campaign; in criticising Beresford he involved Long's opinions as part of his argument. The publication of Napier's history led to a long running and acrimonious argument in print between Beresford and his partisans on one side, with Napier and Long's nephew Charles Edward Long (Long having died before the controversy reached the public arena) on the other.[1] Recently, Long's performance as a cavalry general has received more favourable comment in Ian Fletcher's revisionist account of the British cavalry in the Napoleonic period.[2]

  1. ^ Napier, W.F.P. History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France 1807-1814, London 1828-1840, Vol. III (2nd Ed.), pp. xxi-xxv, also A Letter to Lord Viscount Beresford in Napier, Vol. VI, pp. xxxv-xxxvi.
  2. ^ Fletcher, I. Galloping at Everything: The British Cavalry in the Peninsula and at Waterloo 1808-15, Spellmount, Staplehurst (1999).